Right, I think enough time has passed for me to start laying truth bombs without ruining it for
everyone. That said:
First up: Avengers Endgame. Let’s be clear. I loved Infinity War. Like, I LOVED it! It could have beenan absolute fucking mess but it was damn near perfect. And that ending! Whoa! I mean, what the
fuck can the Avengers do now? They lost. Half the universe is gone. I mean, they could probably still
do something but half the fucking universe is gone regardless. No comebacks from that I’m afraid.
And if you think that a franchise of over 20 movies, most of which have been wildly entertaining will
do something as awful as use time travel…. Well you’d be 100% correct.
It is without a doubt the worst and laziest plot device known to man. Whenever it turns up in a movie, you’re better off fast forwarding to the end to watch all the horrible stuff that happened in the movie get magicallyerased. Because that’s what always happens. Save yourself the time. Skip to the end and watch howa fucking DO OVER (in a movie where they say no do overs a lot) saves half the universe. It rendersInfinity War entirely pointless. Gutted.
But you like Back to the Future I hear you say. And you’re right, I do. But that movie is all about timetravel. It’s not just shoehorned in there.
I have other gripes. The Infinity Gauntlet was made by Giant Peter Dinklage and he is the only one
who could have forged a gauntlet powerful enough to case all the infinity stones. Right? Wrong! Iron
Man can make one. Guess he just had some spare parts floating around. Good for him… Oh and with
a little help from Ant-Man he works out time travel in an evening… impressive.
It’s not all bad. Hipster Hulk is inspired. Fat Thor is an absolute treat and having him shack up with
the Guardians of the Galaxy could be great… The action sequences are very well done. The
trademark snarky humour remains intact. Captain America facing down Thanos and his massive
army by himself is a bit of a moment… But this isn’t the Thanos that snapped his fingers, this is a
“previous” Thanos. I guess. While I’m on Cap, Steve Rogers goes and uses time travel to go back and
have a life with Agent Carter… it is a lovely moment but doesn’t that undo his original sacrifice? Or
maybe it doesn’t, it’s such a confusing and shitty development that my rage overpowers and sense
of empathy or goodwill.
You know what I would have preferred? Here’s your ending. Have one movie. One! Basically all of
Infinity War but have Iron Man (or Vision just to give him something to do) go on a quest and make
another Infinity Gauntlet. Tack Endgame’s ending on the end there, “I’m inevitable”, “I’m Iron Man”.
He saves the day, Thor goes for the head. Boom! There’s your fucking movie! No time travel, about
three hours saved and enough sacrifices made to keep people talking. But if that had happened
Disney would be down about €2.8bn. So, ya know…. Time travel.
And onto the other crippling disappointment of the year: Game of Thrones. Maybe we should have
seen it coming. Gendry’s ability to run and a Dragon’s ability to fly faster than Superman on steroids
hinted at problems toward the end of season 7… But they were taking their time with this season.
We were going to have to wait until they were good and fucking ready! Good, take your time. Don’t
fuck it up! The drip feed started when we were told there’d be feature length episodes.. but then we
heard there would only be 6 episodes. Spidey senses were tingling at this point. There’s still so much
to cover, six episodes seems a little sparse. But I think we swatted the tingles away, it’s GOT. It’s
never been anything but riveting… And just having it back was enough to get pulses racing.
It allstarted reasonably well. Starks met up. Hurrah. Groundwork was laid and on we went to episode
two. I enjoyed this one immensely. More groundwork was laid but there was some really nice
moments as people open up a little, because they all think they’re going to die. Thrones secret
weapon, humour, is also used rather well.
Onto episode three where the cracks begin to show.Oh were ready for a battle! And we got one. We just couldn’t see it. The next day, we were told ourtelevisions were not adjusted correctly. 50 years ago we were told “do not adjust your television set” by a television show of the same name. In the age of the 50” plasma with 4K and HD we’re told to adjust it so we can see what’s happening! I’m sorry but fuck you! This was badly made, end of. Below may or may not be an actual shot of season 8 episode 3...
Now there were decent moments in there and some of the distant visuals looked great but the up
close stuff was wretched. The Night King had one job. Get to Bran Stark. Not really sure why, but
rather than wait until everyone is dead, he rushes into battle and exposes himself. Arya Stark flies
out of nowhere and promptly kills the idiot. Loved it was Arya who killed him, hate how it was done.
I still don’t understand it. Oh, and everyone’s favourite hottie (or mine at least) Melisandre had been
telling everyone that she wouldn’t survive the night. She does, so out of embarrassment I guess she
goes and kills herself. I guess we’ll find out more about the Lord of Light from someone else, except
we won’t. There’s no mention of him in latter episodes. Oh well. Can’t really be angry at this show, I
mean one mediocre episode does not a bad show make… hold my starbucks cup…
Look GOT team, if you’re not going to take this shit seriously then why the fuck should we? Aside
from the coffee mishap there were other glaring errors. Tormund waxing lyrical about Jon Snow
riding a dragon is a doozie. “What kind of a person climbs on a fucking dragon?” Well apparently you do Tormund or have you already forgotten???
Moving on. The main fuck up this season was how they gave us too much story in too few episodes.
And when you rush, you make mistakes. Like leaving starbucks cups or plastic water bottles in shots.
The show runners just wanted this shit to end, or that’s’ how it comes across anyway. Dani sees her
mate decapitated and decides that everyone in the Red keep should be burned to death. Tyrion, had
asked her to call off her inevitable victory if the surrender bell was rung but she just goes full agent
orange and doesn’t stop. You’re either the kind of person who thinks GOT has been building to this
moment and this was unrushed and fully earned or you’re the kind of person who thinks this needed
a lot more fleshing out and is completely unearned. I’m the latter. The episode in question looks
terrific but that’s all I can give it.
It’s odd, I’ve been talking Got for a while now and I’ve only just mentioned Tyrion. His trademark useof language is horribly underused. He’s reduced to an also ran for a lot of this season and while he gets the best lines in the final episode, well, by then it just doesn’t matter. Jon Snow kills Dani. Her dragon sets fire to the iron throne and fucks off. Someone really should hunt that thing… just in
case! Bran is made king and everyone sort of just goes home. It’s really funny watching the Dothraki
heading off without a care in the world. YOUR QUEEN WAS JUST STABBED TO DEATH LADS! These guys would usually butcher continents over a game of tiddlywinks… Bran becomes King which is pretty funny. I guess he’s no longer the three eyed raven or whatever the fuck that was? Cercei dies with Jamie in an utterly pointless way. A room collapses on them. If they’d just climbed into the mouth of the giant dragon skull nearby they’d have been fine. Only The Hound gets and ending worthy of note. His fight with the Mountain is very satisfying. They both go out in a blaze of glory though again, The Mountain killing his creator in a split second, while funny, felt…yep… rushed!
And that is that. I’ll buy the box set and watch them all back to back at some point but it will be awful watching the latter part of season 7 and most of season 8 drag this incredible show down a few
pegs. Subsequent rumours of HBO offering the show runners more episodes to do it right does not
show the writers in the best light. I guess the pull of a galaxy Far Far Away is to attractive. Problem
is, while these guys had GRR Martin’s books as source material, they made great television. As soon
as the books dried up, it went south. Who will they look to for help with Star Wars? George fucking
Lucas? Oh Christ.
Cheers,
G.
